It might seem a bit strange, but tribute band Dark Star Orchestra has presented more authentic Grateful Dead concert experiences than the Grateful Dead performed concerts. And there’s no sign of DSO slowing down anytime soon.

Local Dead Heads can catch the band’s annual visit to the Paradise Performing Arts Center on Feb. 14, courtesy of North State Productions.

“The thing that surprises me,” Dark Star guitarist Jeff Mattson said recently on the phone from his Long Island, New York home, “is all these young people coming who never got to see the Grateful Dead, who were not old enough or not born yet when Jerry passed away. Who knew that 20 some years later that they would be just discovering the Grateful Dead and embracing that trip?”

“And a lot of them tell me we’re kind of their Grateful Dead because we sort of represent what the trip was like when the Dead were alive and happening, as opposed to all of these offshoots, that are important also. But if you want to see what the Dead were like back in ’70s and ’80s and ’60s and ’90s (laughs) not necessarily in that order, we’re that thing.”

Mattson himself discovered the Dead when he was a young teen. “My first experience with the Grateful Dead was taking one of their albums out of the library. I think it might have been ‘Workingman’s Dead,’ and really digging it. Then I started buying up albums — there weren’t many albums back then — they didn’t have that many out back then.”

“I really started getting into it when ‘Europe ’72’ came out and then in 1973 I saw them for the first time at the Nassau Coliseum — September of ’73 — after that I was completely in, lock, stock and barrel for the Grateful Dead. When I realized that they were really doing a different thing with the music every night I really dug that. It wasn’t note for note what they played on the records. Once I got into The Dead I was pretty single-minded for a while (laughs).”

In 1979, Mattson formed the Zen Tricksters, playing Grateful Dead covers with his longtime roommate keyboardist Rob Barraco. After kicking around the Dead scene playing with Phil Lesh and Friends, and in the post-Jerry incarnations of the Grateful Dead, Further and The Dead, Barraco hooked up with Dark Star in 2007. When the lead guitarist slot opened in the band a couple of years later, Mattson said he seemed like “the logical person” to fill it. “First I just thought I was filling in and then, you know, I started playing with them and it was, the music was happening and we took it from there. And it’s been like eight years,” he explained.

Like many, Mattson sees the appeal of the Grateful Dead in the band’s music and spirit. “I think the people like the sense of adventure, not knowing what’s going to happen, what they’re going to play, how they’re going to play it. Maybe the possibility they break out some song they’ve never played before or haven’t played in 25 years or something like that. That’s what kept people coming back night after night.”

And the same holds true for Dark Star Orchestra, which continues to log more than 150 shows a year. “Who would have known,” Matson laughs. “Like I said before, after the Grateful Dead ended — 20 some years after that — it would still be going strong and there would be a passion to go see those songs. I mean, I believe in the songs, particularly. They’re strong enough and memorable enough and compelling enough that people would want to hear them. It’s something that the esteem that the Grateful Dead have. It’s just full speed ahead.”